Category Archives: earmarks

Recently, the Virginia Democrat wrote a post about his frustrations with the Democratic Party of Virginia. One of his frustrations was Congressman Jim Moran. Here’s what he had to say about him:

“Jim Moran – You have lost your only chance to be a House committee chairmen… won’t ever happen for you… as a committee chair, you would have the authority to send resources to Alexandria and Arlington, part of the economic power engine in the State of Virginia. It’s time for you to retire. We need new blood in your seat… someone that is in touch with the district and it’s needs… someone that has a chance to lead. You’ve been a back bencher for years and it’s time for you to end that charade.”

Hard to believe that even after Jim Moran says that “I earmark a lot of money“ that Democrats claim that he’s been a “back bencher for years.”

I agree. It’s time for Jim to retire.

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Rep. David Obey (D-Wisconsin), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, announced his retirement. While Obey’s policy priorities may be nothing to write home about, he is, at least, an ethical Member, and fought for restraint on earmarks.

The Washington Post’s Virginia Politics Blog is reporting on the close ties of Moran with Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Washington), Obey’s likely successor.

Not only are Moran and Dicks friends, they’re both embroiled in the PMA Group pay-to-play scandal.

With Obey gone, Moran and Dicks will have an unfettered hand to spend our tax dollars on pork barrel projects for all of their contributors.

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For today’s sad but true quips about Jim Moran, I decided to do some digging and pull up some more older stories on Jim Moran. Here’s what I found.

Oct 2002: Despite endorsing his candidacy in 2002, the Sun Gazette still didn’t have some good things to say about him.

“U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, D-8th, seems to want to self-destruct. Some of his behavior is simply too close to the ethical and legal line….”

“his ethical clumsiness was apparent well before his first term in Congress began in 1991.”

Feb 2008: Citizens Against Government Waste reports on statements made by Moran on earmarking.

On January 29, Roll Call reported Rep. Moran saying, “We should be earmarking more, for roads and bridges and even soup kitchens. People are hurting.” The real problem is that members of Congress have been engaged in a frenzy of earmarking projects like “Bridges to Nowhere” and “Roads to Nowhere” without regard to merit or whether the funding ever achieves any measurable outcomes. Rep. Moran himself is responsible for 67 earmarks in the fiscal 2008 budget, worth $97 million.

As much as members of Congress like to think their pork spending is only a drop in the bucket, study after study has shown that earmarking has real consequences and is detrimental to both agency priorities and taxpayers.

Rep. Moran snagged the Porker of the Month in November, 2008 for his enthusiastic support for wealth redistribution and his disdain for the idea that people who create wealth should be entitled to keep it. These days, with the passage of the $787 billion “stimulus” package, $700 billion in bank bailouts, the $410 billion omnibus bill crammed with thousands of earmarks and the deficit hovering somewhere between $1.7 and $1.8 trillion, Rep. Moran must be as happy as a pig in…well, you know what we mean.